The Greatest Monster of Them All

Hal is a producer of cheap horror films. He decides to cast has-been actor Ernst von Croft in his next movie, a cheap vampire film for the teenage market. von Croft was once billed as the ...
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Hal is a producer of cheap horror films. He decides to cast has-been actor Ernst von Croft in his next movie, a cheap vampire film for the teenage market. von Croft was once billed as the Greatest Monster of them All and sees this as his great comeback, but when he sees the final product, he's the one who's horrified. Written by
garykmcd

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The plot may have dated some-- movies are no longer interested in monster-sized bugs as they were in the teen- age 1950's. Still, the first half of this 30-minutes amounts to a hilarious insider's parody of how those cheapos got made. Sam Jaffe and Robert H. Harris are two very Jewish schlock-meisters of poverty-row fare. Listening to them kvetch at each other over how best to economize on their newest feature is enough to humorously debunk a carload of Hollywood myths. Then there's writer William Redfield who must come up with a new monster-bug-- maybe a cockroach, he thinks. No wonder he drinks every chance he gets. Add old monster impresario, Richard Hale (a combination Karloff and Lugosi) who insists on an artistic approach, and you know something has to explode. Which it does.

Robert Stevens directs with real flair. Watch Redfield, in a drunken stupor, do a crazy crawl underneath a bed to join Hale on the other side, when stumbling around would have been so much easier. Also, catch the blonde bombshell as she transforms from stately victim of Hale's vampirish designs into her sleazy gum-popping self. And, through it all, Harris apparently thinks that with enough massage something will grow out of the top of his barren head.

The entry may not be everyone's cup of tea, and may even have caused consternation in the offices of the Anti-Defamation League. But I take it as a piece of deft parody from a series that seldom did tongue-in-cheek. Also-- stick around for Hitchcock's funnier-than-average epilogue. In my book-- a must-see.

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